Trucking Quotes

“It’s too late now. The game’s been won by companies who don’t two shits about community character or decent jobs. Congratufuckinglations, America! We did the deal. Now we’ve got an unlimited supply of cheap commodities and unhealthy food and crumbling downtowns, no sense of place, and a permanent under class. Yay. The underclass isn’t relegated to urban ghettos either. It’s coast to coast and especially in between. Take US 50 west from Kansas City to Sacramento or US 6 from Chicago to California and you’ll see a couple thousand miles of corn, soybeans, and terminally ill towns. It looks like a scene from The Walking Dead. If there’s such a thing as the American Heartland, it has a stake through it.”
― Finn Murphy, The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road

“You're never lost. You always know exactly where you are. You're right here. It's just that sometimes you've misplaced your destination.

Brian W. Porter 2005

Have you ever wondered how the computer you're using got to the store? How about your medicines, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the furniture, the plants in the garden center? Do they have a railroad right there? Does merchandise magically appear? Only if you grow your own food, make your own clothes, make your own tools, cut your own wood, and make your own furniture, can you get away from trucking. Everything you see, even the nature outside in some places, has been on at least one truck.”
― Brian W. Porter

“It’s too late now. The game’s been won by companies who don’t give two shits about community character or decent jobs. Congratufuckinglations, America! We did the deal. Now we’ve got an unlimited supply of cheap commodities and unhealthy food and crumbling downtowns, no sense of place, and a permanent under class. Yay. The underclass isn’t relegated to urban ghettos either. It’s coast to coast and especially in between. Take US 50 west from Kansas City to Sacramento or US 6 from Chicago to California and you’ll see a couple thousand miles of corn, soybeans, and terminally ill towns. It looks like a scene from The Walking Dead. If there’s such a thing as the American Heartland, it has a stake through it.”
― Finn Murphy, The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road

“One way to get up-to-date travel information while driving in the South is to install a citizens band, or CB, radio into your car.
…truckers devised their own radio dialect based on jargon filtered down from military, aviation and law enforcement radio protocols. A basic understanding of on-air etiquette and terminology is essential for those wishing to join in the conversations…might include an exchange like this (with translations):
Break one-nine. (Please, gentlemen, might I break in on this conversation? [on channel 19])
Go ahead, breaker. (Oh, by all means.)
Hey J.B., you got your ears on? (You, sir, driving the J.B. Hunt truck, are you listening to your CB radio?)
Ten-four. (Yes.).
“Can I get a bear report?” (Are there any police behind you?)
“Yeah, that town up ahead of you is crawling with local yokels.” (The town I just left has a number of municipal police looking for speeders.)
…For an average motorist, tuning a CB radio to channel 19 for the first time is like being cured of life-long deafness – provided there are truckers nearby. The big rigs that loomed large and soulless suddenly have personalities emanating from them. Truckers with similar destinations will keep each other awake for hundreds of miles at a stretch, chatting about politics, religion, sex, sports, and working conditions. This provides hours of entertainment for those listeners who can penetrate the jargon and rich accents.”
― Gary Bridgman, Lonely Planet Louisiana & the Deep South

“Today, many global businesses are looking to increase employee productivity, reduce the overall cost of manufacturing, streamline their operational activities. Hence they are opting for a trucking & transportation management system in order to make their work easy.”
― Amanda Morgan

“It [trucking] is a lifestyle that pounds home the reality that liberty and freedom are deeply related to loneliness and isolation” (p. 111)”
― Benjamin Lorr, The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket